


Get Down With The Sickness

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Caretaking, Everyone is Okay in The End, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Jack Kline, Protective Rowena MacLeod, Protective Winchesters, Scared Jack Kline, Sick Castiel (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 07:52:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18734779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: On the way home from a hunt, Cas and Jack encounter an angel sent to request Cas’s return to Heaven.He gets a firm rejection from Cas, but he gives Cas something in return.When a terrified Jack calls Dean to report that Cas is ill, he, Sam and Rowena race to help the stricken angel.Meanwhile, Jack has to find a way to take care of his dad until help arrives.





	Get Down With The Sickness

This is a very unhappy poltergeist, Jack thinks, as he ducks the entire contents of a cutlery drawer, including some very sharp knives.

Rena, the lady who lives in the house, screams as a whole dinner service comes flying at her, and Jack grabs her wrist and pulls her down out of the way. The shards of china spray down on them when the plates hit the walls, but other than a few stinging cuts, they’re okay.

“Now, Jack,” Cas yells.

Jack digs the hex bag out of his pocket, and throws it directly to his father.

Cas makes a gesture with his hand and the bag comes to a stop in mid air, explodes, and there’s the merest hint of blue around it as the angel bolsters the magic therein with his Grace.

He sends it flying across the room, towards something he can see even if Jack and Rena can’t, and the entire house seems to shudder.

A moment later, everything goes quiet and Jack can almost feel the difference between the house now, and before.

“It’s okay,” he tells Rena. He helps her up, and Cas comes over to make sure they’re both okay.

“Is it gone?” 

Cas nods, and rests one hand on her shoulder, and the other on Jack’s. He feels the delicate _ting_ as his dad heals them, but Rena’s still so stunned that she’s probably none the wiser.

“It won’t be back, either,” he promises.

They do what they can to help her clean up, and then Jack yawns, loudly, it coming out of nowhere.

Cas makes their apologies, but Rena assures them that they’ve both done more than enough, and she’s got it from there.

Outside, Cas keeps a secure hold of Jack’s arm, helping him stay steady and walking in the right direction, towards their truck.

“Fighting poltergeists is exciting,” he says. “But exhausting.”

Cas sighs. “It’s not meant to be thrilling, Jack,” he says. “People’s lives are in danger; they’re scared and, often, have nowhere to turn because they can’t tell their friends or neighbours for fear of not being believed. Hunting is dangerous; I don’t want you to forget that.”

Jack nods, sobered. But all the same, he doesn’t see where the harm is in finding some fun in it! He can handle a hunt; he did well in there, against the poltergeist, and he did well with Sam the week before when they went after a wendigo.

He’s a little hurt that Cas seems to think he’s being irresponsible. He can handle anything they want to teach him, deal with anything that comes up.

Maybe he’ll get the chance to show Cas, and then his father won’t worry he’s not taking this seriously enough.

But he says none of this to Cas, of course, because he would probably just get another lecture.

When Cas’s grip around his arm tightens, suddenly, and he starts pushing Jack instead of guiding, he wonders if Cas heard those thoughts, and is maybe angry now.

But he’s never known Cas to be angry with him, not once, not like with Dean. Cas has explained about Dean; that he’s not great with words, sometimes, and he can often be angry because he’s afraid for them.

Dean wants to keep everybody safe, and it’s a constant source of fear and frustration for him that he can’t.

Jack doesn’t get that, but he’d never expected Cas to behave the same way.

Except…. Cas tugs open the door, and he’s ushering Jack into the truck, when Jack hears a voice.

“I won’t hurt the nephilim, Castiel.”

The voice sounds rough, croaky. Jack tries to see who it belongs to, but there’s just a shadowy outline in the dark. A man, for sure, but whoever it is Cas is now on his guard.

“My son,” he says, and Jack would beam with pride if he wasn’t suddenly wary of this stranger approaching them out of nowhere, wary because Cas is wary.

The man waves his hand impatiently, as if this is a conversation that’s unimportant. “We need you to come back, now.”

Jack’s the one holding onto Cas, now, hand gripping tight to his dad’s sleeve. He knows Heaven wants Cas back; he’s heard Dean and Sam and Cas talking when they think he’s asleep or elsewhere in the bunker.

He knows they’re all worried that asking will become telling and that will then become taking if Cas continues to refuse.

But Cas has made his decision. He’s staying with his family.

As far as the angels are concerned, though, they’re Cas’s family, and Jack remembers Dean’s bitter curse at that, as if the angels don’t have that right.

Jack knows a lot has happened before he was born, and he hasn’t managed to get them to tell him what, but he knows Dean and Sam seem to think Heaven gave up any right to Cas, and that Cas is theirs now.

He agrees on that last part; Cas is theirs, and Jack has no intention of losing his other parent.

“You know I’m not coming back,” Cas says. “It won’t matter how many times you ask, Ephil.”

The angel comes a little closer, and he doesn’t look well. Jack frowns at the red eyes, and the tremors that shake through him.

“It’s time to think of the bigger picture. Heaven can’t be allowed to fall. It’s your duty. I know you’ve never cared much for that in the past, but-“

Jack seethes at those words, and tries to get out of the car, but Cas pushes him back inside, and closes over the door.

He steps away, so Jack can’t hear what else is said.

Ephil comes closer, and Cas’s sword slips down into his hand. The other angel stops, and Jack can see exhaustion in his expression.

It’s more than just Cas refusing to go, though. He looks like he might drop to the ground at any moment.

Maybe he’s hurt. Or sick. 

But he’s also trying to take his father from him.

Whatever Cas says next, it seems to settle the matter. Ephil retreats, slowly, and then Jack loses sight of him.

Cas comes back, and gets in.

“I’ll let Dean and Sam know of this,” he tells Jack. “When we get home. No need for you to mention it.”

Jack nods, but he can’t stop thinking if the angels are now at the ‘taking’ stage.

“He didn’t look well,” he says, as Cas pulls the truck away from kerb.

“No,” Cas agrees. “It’s a long drive home; why don’t you get some sleep?”

++

Jack isn’t sure just long he’s been asleep for, but he wakes when he hears voices, and the car stops, a little sharp, and the engine turns off.

“Are we home?”

He sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and peers out through the windshield. 

This isn’t the bunker.

They’re outside a motel.

“Do we have another hunt?”

Jack gets his answer when he turns and sees Cas sagging back against the driver’s seat. 

He looks awful, like Ephil had looked awful, and Jack is suddenly very, very scared.

“I need you…”. Cas is cut off by a fit of coughing that looks so painful Jack wants to cry. “I need you to go in and book a room. You’ve got your ID, and your credit card?”

Jack nods, not sure he can speak without sounding as afraid as he is.

“If there’s a problem, tell him your father is in the truck, and he’s taken unwell, and you’re going to call your uncles. Can you do that, Jack?”

He nods again, fumbles for the door handle, misses. Cas grabs his arm, holds him steady, lets him calm.

“It’ll be alright,” he says.

Jack takes a breath, then gets out of the car. Goes into the manager’s office.

Shows his ID, and his card, sees the man staring at him and back to the picture, and back to him.

Jack points to Cas, and says, “My dad’s sick, we have to pull in, please. Can we have a room while we wait for my uncles?”

The manager gives him the key, and even helps him get Cas inside. He tells Jack to call the office if he needs help, that they have a doctor local they can have come round.

Jack isn’t sure how he manages to convince the man that Cas doesn’t need a doctor, or that it’s okay to leave him to look after a sick man, but he does it, and then they’re alone, and Jack fights to keep his voice level as he grabs his cellphone and hits speed dial.

“Dean? Dean, Cas is sick.”

++

Sam groans when he hears a thumping knock on his door, and reaches out clumsily for his phone.

It’s not even 6am, and since Rowena moved in, he’s been getting up later in the mornings to jog.

“If that’s your brother,” the witch complains, “I’ll turn him into something with no legs, this time, Samuel. I mean it.”

Sam shrugs, half minded to let her. There’s no better method of practising safe sex than living with Dean, giving his brother seems determined to make sure he doesn’t get _any_.

When the door slams open, Sam comes all the way awake, and sits up, furious. He drags the blanket up over Rowena, wishing she’d at least put something on at night, but she seems to be caught in this dumb game with Dean that if he’s going to keep bursting in on them at inopportune moments, he’ll get the eyeful he deserves.

“Dude, what the fuck!”

Dean has his phone pressed to his ear, and snaps his fingers at them. “Okay, whatever, get up. Cas is sick. Come on! Rowena, you too!”

Then he’s gone, and Sam feels chill fingers tickle down his spine.

Rowena’s already sitting up, a little blearily.

“The canary’s sick?”

“Yeah, get dressed.”

++

Dean puts the phone in the middle of the table, on speaker, so they can all listen.

“Okay, Jack,” Rowena says. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

They listen as Jack tells them about the encounter with Ephil, how he looked sick. How he, Jack, then fell asleep until Cas woke him up at the motel, and how the manager had to half carry Cas inside.

“Sounds like the tweety pie caught something from that other nasty angel,” Rowena says.

Dean rolls his eyes, because yeah, duh. Except…”Angels can’t get sick.”

“Actually,” Sam says, and he grabs an old book from the shelves. “There’s a brief entry in one of the Letters’ journals, about a minor epidemic among the celestials that resembled a human illness, influenza.”

Great. Angel flu. “And? What did they do about it? How bad did it get?” 

He mutes the phone, just in case Sam’s about to tell him something he doesn’t want to hear, never mind have Jack hearing.

“It has to clear up itself,” Sam says, “but the guy who wrote this says that all the angels recovered, though they were pretty miserable from the sounds of it.”

Okay, miserable they can deal with. They’ve all had the flu at one time or another, and yeah, it’s shit, but Dean’s pulled Sam through a few nasty bouts so he can do the same for Cas.

He turns the speaker back on. “Okay, Jack?”

“I’m here.”

“We think Cas probably has some kind of flu.” Even without the entry in that journal. “His symptoms sound like it anyway.”

“That’s...good?”

Well, not good, but it could have been a lot worse. And at least Cas will recover, and Jack won’t be able to catch it, not since he’s human now thanks to his piece of shit biological father. 

“It means he’s gonna feel crap for a while,” Dean says, “but then he’ll get better. We’re gonna come get you two, but I’ll tell you things you can do for him in the meantime, okay?”

Sam puts the phone back on mute. “Dean, we’re a day’s drive if all three of us take it in turns so we don’t have to stop.”

Dean doesn’t even glance sideways. “All two of us.”

Sam looks like he wants to take that further, but they have a situation so for now it’s going to have wait.

Dean can feel Rowena glaring daggers at his back, but he could care less. There is no way anybody bar him, Sam, Cas or Jack gets behind the wheel of Baby. And that’s all there is to say on that.

He reaches down and unmutes the phone. “Hey, kid. You got something to write on?”

++

There’s a small shop tacked on to the motel; it sells mostly tourist type things, but there is a small grocery section, and Jack ventures inside, Dean’s list in his hand, and quickly fills a basket with as many of the things on it that he can find.

The old man at the till watches him suspiciously as if he thinks Jack is up to no good. It’s difficult not to look round, difficult to concentrate feeling the man’s eyes on him.

But he gets everything he can, and then goes to the till and has the man ring them up, and Jack bags them himself and then he pays.

The man’s eyes stay on him, even as Jack leaves, and it’s a relief to get out of the store.

He knows Cas will be safe enough in their room. Jack put warding on the doors, and used a special sigil Cas had taught him that barred entry to a place from anyone who meant harm to the people inside.

Still, he’s glad to get back to his father, and finds Cas still lying on the bed, but with the blankets twisted around him.

Jack locks the door and rushes to Cas’s side. He puts the back of his hand to Cas’s forehead, like Dean said to do during the phone call, and wants to cry when he realises Cas is much warmer than before.

Dean said Cas would get worse before he got better, but Jack’s genuinely scared now.

“It’s just the flu,” he tells Cas. “Dean says so, and he says you’ll feel bad for a while but then you’ll be okay. I...I have to make you some light soup and get you to drink water and make sure you rest. I’ll take care of you, Cas. Sam and Dean and Rowena, they’re coming to get us, but we’ll be alright.”

Cas doesn’t answer, and doesn’t move at all while Jack fights to untangle the blankets and spread them out again over his body.

Then he grabs a tin of soup from the bag, pours it into a bowl, and sticks it in the microwave.

He can do this.

He _has_ to. 

++

Dean takes the first shift driving; he figures he can do five, six hours at a push, and then Sam can take over, and then he’ll cover the rest of the distance between them and Cas and Jack once he’s got some sleep.

Sam stews in the driver’s seat, and Dean couldn’t care less. He’s got more important things to worry about than rubbing Rowena up the wrong way, threats of being turned into various animate and inanimate objects regardless. If she wants to impress him with her magic, she can use it to kick whatever friggin’ angel bug Cas has caught right out of his system.

She owes it to him, given she turned him rabid that time and nearly got them both killed.

Sam might have said it just needs to pass by itself, but if there’s anything they can do to get shot of it sooner, Dean’s going to make sure it gets done.

++

Getting Cas to eat and drink wasn’t easy.

He was hard to wake, for one thing, and even when he opened his eyes, it was like he wasn’t actually aware of where he was.

He looked through Jack rather than at him, and that confusion made coaxing the soup and some water into him a challenge.

After, Jack let him sleep again, and he still is, though it’s anything but restful.

He shouldn’t _be_ sleeping at all, but Sam said Jack should expect that; this was really just a flu for angels, and they could expect Cas to respond just like a human would.

He’d told Jack not to worry.

That was hard, too. Because Jack had never seen Cas like this. He’d go through periods of tossing and turning, trying to push the blankets off and muttering in what Jack knew was Enochian, because Cas had been teaching him.

Jack tried to soothe him and put damp clothes on his forehead because he was sweating so much.

And at other times he’d go quietly, almost deathly still, and those times were the scariest.

He really needs Dean and Sam, he needs them to come and help Cas because he doesn’t know what to do.

But it’ll be hours yet, and all Jack can do is hope Cas doesn’t get any worse.

++

“She knows how to drive,” Sam says.

“Never said she didn’t.”

“She’s older than both of us combined.”

“I know. They were still walking everywhere when she was our age.”

Rowena leans forward, the smile on her face sharp enough to cut. “She’s also in the car.”

Dean glances at her, figures maybe he was a little out of line. “You’ve aged well?”

Rowena sighs. “I’m used to your intolerable rudeness, Dean, but I’ll let it go this time because you’re worried for Castiel. _This time_. But you wouldn’t put your car before your angel, would you?”

Dean sputters at her. “What? What the fuck? What the hell do you mean?”

Sam’s staring at him suspiciously. 

“Because we’ll get there faster, and safer, if three of us share the driving instead of two.”

“No, we won’t.” _Because it isn’t happening_.

“So you do put this car first.” Sam’s tone is flint.

Dean takes his eyes off the road long enough to see the disappointment on Sam’s face. “What the hell kind of thing is that to say?”

How can Sam not get it? Yes, Baby means everything to him. This car has been their one constant when they didn’t have anything else, when even their _dad_ came and went like the wind and left them to get by. Or not.

It’s been their home.

And home is for family, and Dean gets that Sam’s got this thing now with Rowena, but he can’t accept her just yet, he needs time, and that means no, she doesn’t drive the damn car.

And he’s allowed to have more than one thing, or person, in his life that mean everything to him.

Cas…. He would kill anything or anyone that looked at their angel the wrong way, and it’s killing him that Cas is hurting, that he and Jack are vulnerable right now and he’s still a chunk of miles away.

But they’ll reach him just as fast as with he and Sam splitting the driving. They’ve done this before, and they both know Baby, know how to coax every last inch of speed out of her, know what to do when her gear sticks just _there_ , a quirk, not a flaw, know how to handle her.

Somewhere instead her metal soul, Dean knows she wants to get to Cas as well, and she won’t like a stranger’s hands on her wheel.

No doubt he and Sam will be fighting over this later, once they’ve reached their family, once they’ve got them safe home, once Cas is okay again. 

But that’s for then, and right now getting to Cas is the only thing that matters.

++

The next time Cas goes quiet and still just feels different to Jack. He’s been sitting at the small table by the window, trying to keep awake, but not sure if he’s managed or not; his head keeps slumping down, and then he’ll realise and startle, but he’s never sure if he did sleep any or if he caught himself in time.

He can’t sleep because he needs to look after Cas.

He can’t sleep because, no matter what Dean and Sam told him, he’s scared to wake up and find…

No. That isn’t going to happen. Somehow, Jack’s going to make sure.

But that assertion feels like he’s sinking into quicksand as he gets up slowly and stops a couple of feet from the bed.

“Castiel?”

There’s no reply. The angel isn’t moving, isn’t saying anything, but it is so different than before that fear takes him and he reaches out with a trembling hand to try and rouse his father.

Cas is hot. Even before Jack can touch, he feels like there’s a searing aura around the angel, and even the bedsheets are sweat soaked.

He’s burning up.

Sam had told him this might happen, his fever might spike, and to just keep him cool.

Jack hurriedly dampens some more towels and dabs at Cas’s forehead and neck, but it’s doing nothing, and he flings them aside in panic.

And then it hits him. The bath.

Jack runs into the next room, puts the plug in and turns on the cold tap full. The pressure is solid and fast, and it won’t take long.

He rushes back to Cas’s side, and grabs his dad under the arms, yanks him out of the bed.

But Cas is taller and bigger, and he’s heavy, Jack barely manages to get his upper body out from under the blankets before Cas tumbles the rest of the way and lands on top of him.

The wind gets knocked out of Jack, probably Cas too, and Jack turns him over fearfully, feels for a pulse that will be all the sign of life he’s likely to get.

It’s there, weak, but there. Cas in still in that vessel, still holding on.

Jack gets up, bends over to grab under Cas’s arms and pulls. But it’s no easy task to drag a six foot angel and the bathtub seems miles away then.

And even if he gets Cas there, how is he going to get him in?

He starts to cry, fear, frustration, exhaustion, overwhelming him. He can’t let Cas down, he can’t.

They’re at the bathroom door. Manoeuvring Cas around that tight corner has Jack yelling in anger, not at Cas, but at the door frame, at the room, at the situation, but he manages and then there’s just getting him to the tub.

Getting him in.

He can’t do it alone. 

He tries. He tries to get Cas up enough to tip him in, clumsy and rough though it’d be, but Cas is a dead weight that he can barely get off the floor.

And he’s hotter now than when Jack dragged him out of bed.

He needs help.

Fortunately, help is here.

++

The door’s locked, and there’s no reply when Sam knocks. The curtains are drawn, they can’t see through into the room, but he knows there’s no way Jack is asleep with Cas sick and needing care, so if they’re not answering…

Dean shoulders him aside, grabs a lock pick set from his pocket, only for Rowena to nudge him out of the way, hold her hand over the doorknob, and utter something under her breath.

The door swings open, and they all push inside.

The bed is empty, sheets on the floor, but they can hear the sounds of a bath running, so it’s no challenge to figure out where the angel and the kid are.

When they reach the bathroom they find Jack sobbing in frustration, trying to heave Cas into the tub.

He doesn’t seem to realise they’re there, under Rowena takes him into her arms, and encourages him back to let Sam and Dean in.

Dean puts the back of his hand to Cas’s cheek, and nods sharply to Sam. They pick the angel up and lower him into the water.

Sam lets the tap run a little more before turning it off; Dean has one hand cupped under Cas’s head to keep it out of the water.

“I’m sorry,” Jack cries, but Rowena shushes him gently.

“There, wee soul, there. He’ll be alright. You’re not by yourself now, you hear?”

Jack nods, and settles a little, but he never takes his eyes off the angel in the tub.

++

Once they get Cas’s temperature down, Rowena has a few magical concoctions, salve, and then a tea, for later, that help Cas a little.

He comes around, lucid for the first time in hours per Jack, and seems surprised at see all four of them gathered around his bed.

“I guess I was...sick,” he says, sounding unsure.

 _Sick_? “This is what you get for hanging around weird angels, you don’t know what you’re going to catch!”

“Dean,” Sam groans.

Cas has strength enough in him to glare. “He wasn’t weird. And I didn’t think I was close enough to catch…”

He says something that sounds like he’s been gargling barbed wire, and Cas must see they don’t know what it is.

“The closest human translation is, I guess, the flu. We don’t often get sick, but with Heaven on the wane…”

Dean reaches out to check if Cas’s temperature is back down to a level that won’t melt metal, and it is. But this...this could happen again, then.

Which means keeping Cas closer to them, and to him, going on. No more separate hunts. No more long distance journeys either.

Not until they find a way to fix this.

“Here’s the plan,” Dean says. “We get you fit enough to travel…”

“I’ve brought some things to help,” Rowena says.

“...And then we get you home. You’ll recover a lot faster in your own bed. Sound good?”

Cas nods, eagerly, gratefully, and then looks at Jack. “Are you okay?”

Jack throws himself into Cas’s arms, and the angel hugs him tightly.

Dean draws the other three back, and they watch as Cas soothes the kid and talks quietly to him.

“We get on the road for tonight,” he says, “and we get those two home.”

Sam looks pointedly at Rowena, and Dean relents with a sigh.

“Okay, fine. She can take the first shift.”


End file.
